Willing to be Illuminated and Pierced

Right after a powerful worship and time with God at the JRev Night last Saturday, all you must do is go home, right? Wrong!

Spend time with friends and…eat!

It’s very important that we strengthen our fellowship and bond with the friends that we love, don’t we? Besides, this is what the Lord wanted for us to be in: a community! And when we are in a community, there are people who help us with our walk in faith, who will pray for and with us, and who will love us, too.

In the Filipino culture (even in every culture in the world), food is the binding source of relationships. You spend your time together not only talking much, but eating and appreciating together what’s in your plate.

In order to satisfy our cravings, off we went to the banchetto at Araneta Center. In Manila, you can find a lot of banchetto

Isaw (barbecued chicken intestines)

food centers especially in the urban areas where workers are highly concentrated. Here, you can find different cuisines at an affordable price.

Although stalls here were not as many as those in Ortigas or Makati, it’s appreciative to find a lot of street food here. I can assure you that they are clean and well handled.

Crablets

So what can we find here? As usual, there’s the isaw or the barbecued chicken intestines, crablets, kwek-kwek or quail eggs coated with flour and my favorite: cheese sticks.

Cheese sticks! Only P30 per cup. ❤

For about P30 per cup for these treats, it was enough to kill off the hunger.

These are your typical Pinoy street food that you can buy in places like this. Hmm…I just wonder why there’s no balut?

But the best is finding friends in the banchetto. While my friend and I were looking for a place to sit, there were another group of friends who called me. Instant seat for both of us and an instant reunion with old friends.

Usually banchettos in Manila go overnight. I am not just sure if this one in Araneta goes until midnight or beyond midnight. But staying until 10 pm is not bad for me as long as there is still a bus trip going home.

If it were not too late in the evening, all of us would have stayed longer and enjoyed the night with more food, and more reunions.